R & D funds a good investment in Maine's future

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Maine has increased the amount of money it spends on research and development thirtyfold in the last 10 years.

That is a big achievement for a small state, although it reflects a low starting point.

Maine's Legislature and voters raised a high of $60 million in 2004, including money from the General Fund and voter-approved bonds. The state targets those funds to help private companies and nonprofits attract additional funds, often from the federal government.

According to researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, that investment is starting to make an impact, but the state must double its investment if it wants to keep pace with other states and countries.

Maine should look at that investment as the price of admission into the global marketplace for a state that wants to expand a vibrant manufacturing base.

Funding research and development is an investment in the future, one that uses our best ideas to create the products that will fuel our economy tomorrow.

The production of the vast majority of shoes, woolen fabric and other consumer commodities once turned out by mills and factories in Maine's towns has long ago shifted overseas.

Maine lost more than 20,000 manufacturing jobs between 1995 and 2005, many in traditional industries such as shoe manufacturing and paper mills.

While many manufacturers have disappeared, other have survived by transforming themselves.

Workers at Tex Tech in Monmouth are making new fire-proof fabric that will line the interior of jets made by European giant Airbus on a site where their predecessors made woolen baseball uniforms.

The same company is developing new ballistics materials that will go into bulletproof vests for soldiers and police.

Irving Tanning in Hartland employs more than 200 people, offering competitive wages and health insurance in a 70-year-old facility.

Last year, the tannery survived its second bankruptcy this century and is now hoping to create new jobs by producing a leather composite material from scraps that would otherwise be part of the waste stream.

The work ethic that once built Maine into a manufacturing hub remains one of its strongest assets.

Research and development money plays a vital role in helping modern manufacturing companies leverage their skills by creating products that demand a higher premium because they offer customers more.

Over the past ten years, the Legislature has made a strong commitment to our manufacturing future by expanding research and development money. Now that the investment is beginning to pay off, we should consider increasing it.